anything but a rationalist in his ethics. Only if rationalism
consists in being unflaggingly reasonable is Spinoza an avowed and
thorough-going rationalist. Reason has, for Spinoza, no transcendental
status or power, and it plays no dictatorial role. Reason, for him, is
essentially an organizing not a legislative power in man's life. To take
a phrase from Professor Dewey, reason, for Spinoza, is reconstructive
not constitutive. The power of the intellect is not some underived,
original, independent power which can impose or, better, superimpose its
categorical imperatives upon human conduct. The power of the intellect
is wholly derivative, dependent upon the nature of the things that it
understands.

Reason gives man the power and insight to organize his life on the basis
of his knowledge, to chose an end harmonious with his nature, what is
for his best advantage--the basis of all virtue--and to select and
control the means by which it can be attained. For the happy governance
of our lives the object we must chiefly understand is ourselves.
Because--in Matthew Arnold's line--"the aids to noble life are all
within." When we become creatures conscious of our natural endowment we
cease to be blind instruments of our natures and become rational,
intelligent agents. For intelligence, in the fundamental sense of the
word, consists in knowing what we are and understanding what we can do.

A man who governs his life according to the dictates of reason tries,
insofar as possible, to harmonize his conflicting interests. He
balances, impartially, future with present goods, and he bases his
decision upon the broad foundation of all his needs. He does not madly
satisfy or repress one passion at the expense of the rest of his nature.
He satisfies a maximum rather than a minimum of his desires, evaluating
them not merely by numerical strength but by quality and duration. It is
only stupid and pernicious confusion that makes man's moral problem
consist in his discovering instead of a good "relative" to his nature,
an "absolute" good, good for no nature at all. Man's real moral problem
is to secure a permanent good instead of a transitory good; a more
inclusive good instead of a more restricted good; a higher good instead
of a lower good. Morally, it matters nothing whether an intellectual
good is "absolute" or whether it is only "relative" to man's mind and
his power of comprehension. But it matters everything, morally, whether
an in